Issues Streaming Now

The IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee provides a platform for leading practice discovery among electrical engineers who are responsible for campus power distribution systems. In many cases, with research university power systems with upwards of 100 megawatts of base load.

The International Code Council has received all comments on its proposed changes to Group A codes which includes healthcare facility safety and sustainability concepts for the 2021 International Building Code. Breakout committees are now sorting through the public comments and preparing them for the Group A Public Comment Hearings, October 24-31, 2018 in Richmond Virginia.

We find gaps and overlaps among several standards suites that set the standard of care for safety and sustainability in healthcare facilities. Several ANSI accredited standards developers claim parts of the healthcare facility space. We allocate our advocacy resources to the promotion of harmonization among them all for university-affiliated medical research and clinical delivery enterprises.

The University of Texas Medical Branch is the founder of the first global standard for health care administration; now under development by International Organization for Standardization. When the high level policy framework is incorporated by reference into public law, or adopted by the private sector as a performance benchmark for healthcare administration, it will have significant effect upon health care enterprises in the US education industry.

The ASHRAE committee writing standards for ventilation and indoor air quality has released another batch of redlines for public review. These changes are important because they are referenced into ASHRAE 90.1 -- Energy Standard for Buildings -- and ASHRAE 90.1 is referenced into federal, state and local energy conservation laws.

The NFPA 99 Healthcare Facilities Code committee develops a distinct consensus document (i.e. "regulatory product") that is distinct from National Electrical Code Article 517; though there are occasional overlap and gaps. It is worthwhile reviewing the scope of each committee.

Large research universities, university-affiliated healthcare enterprises and K-12 science laboratories provide a large market for this technology. When new research square-footage is budgeted the #TotalCostofOwnership of this technology is difficult to determine because of its inter-dependence on environmental air management systems designed for fire safety and energy conservation.

We follow state adaptations of national codes that set the standard of care for electrical safety in education facility design, construction, operation and maintenance; starting with the State of Michigan -- a state with a $490 billion gross domestic product; and ranked the 13th largest state in the United States from an economic point of view.

Information and communications technology (ICT) is a fast-moving economic space in which a mix of consensus and open-source standards form the broad contours of leading practice. All school districts, colleges, universities and university-affiliated health care systems have significant product, system, firmware and labor resources allocated to ICT.

A review of education facility industry consensus and open source standards that set the standard of care for premises security, emergency management and active shooter events. We are active in about 10 standards, or parts of standards. We will likely be marking up redlines open for public review or setting up breakout sessions to “get down in the weeds” if necessary. It is usually necessary.

Status check on standards action that guide laboratory safety and sustainability in all building disciplines. There are about ten standards developers in this space and they do not all move in a coordinated manner among themselves; much less from state-to-state. Anyone is welcomed to join this teleconference with the login information below. For an agenda, please join our mailing list.

Examine public input for the 2020 National Electrical Code that is relevant to the education facilities industry and prepare public comment. The second of three breakout teleconferences ahead of the August 30th deadline.

BSR/NSF 14-201x (i97r3), Plastics Piping System Components and Related Materials (revision of ANSI/NSF 14-2017). This Standard establishes minimum physical, performance, and health effects requirements for plastic piping system components and related materials. These criteria were established for the protection of public health and the environment. Click here to view these changes in full: ANSI Standards Action | PDF Pages 32-33

Status check on the rapidly expanding constellation of consensus and open source standards that will guide safety and sustainability regulations for the emergent #SmartCampus. Of the 250-odd ANSI accredited standards developers we count about 50 of them active in capturing some aspect of the Internet of Things transformation. There are even more open source standards developers in this space. As is our custom, we will focus on public commenting opportunities that consensus and open source standards developers; scheduling breakout work sessions with user-interest subject matter experts as necessary.

Review and interactive discussion of codes and standards appearing in several hundred design, construction, operation & maintenance documents distributed to suppliers to the education facility industry. This is a chance for design and engineering staffs to learn about what other institutions are doing with respect to establishing accepted good practice, conforming to safety and sustainability regulations, and what local adaptations and modifications these institutions are making to national and international standards.

Examine public input for the 2020 National Electrical Code that is relevant to the education facilities industry and prepare public comment. The last of three breakout teleconferences ahead of the August 30th deadline.